klee11mtl wrote:You have a more generous budget than I did so if you don't mind the extra hardware, I concur with those that suggest a separate grinder. The Breville ones aren't the best and if you take up the hobby, it would likely be your next upgrade anyways.

Really, I don't have a budget yet.
But *if* it's possible I'd rather either:
* buy once, start with equipment that has high chances of not needing an upgrade for a LONG time. I see that coffee equipment can be very durable which partially justifies it's cost (but the initial astonishment of how expensive is this stuff hasn't past yet).
* buy something that has a good resale value, preferably buy used gear

I mentioned 3 setups and all may be acquired for a little less than $3K, but that's a coincidence. These are just 3 setups that happen to have the features that I want and it turns out that their price is similar. I find $3K to be a lot....but I'd rather cry once than have to spend even more by starting too cheap or ending up with a machine that I want to or need to replace soon. Like I did once already. Budget is flexible, I have some savings but eventually there will be the question of whether it's worthwhile to spend them this way.

I see some people using their gear for many years. And I see that there are new and better things coming out. I wonder how both of these things fit together. Is it that the upgrades are not that large as to be worth the investment for some users (and naturally I see that it is worthwhile for others)? Or maybe there's something else behind it?

IanO wrote:A few thoughts...

It's best to not drink milk based drinks after about mid afternoon.

But...why?

IanO wrote:I live in two worlds; 1) Good coffee & espresso for me and others that's easy for everyone to make and 2) coffee drinks as hobby.

For the first I found a Breville Oracle to be the best option. EVERYONE can learn to use it and it produces consistently good drinks. I bought an Oracle Touch (30 day return policy), used it every day, and tried a number of others during that period and nothing beat the Oracle for the money so kept it.

For the second. To me the best affordable value is still a Virtuoso + and a Silvia (ideally w/ PID). I still use my Silvia in my studio and am still happy with it. Next up is a Sette 270Wi/Vario W/Forté AP and Casa Jr (Chris Coffee version). There are a lot of other good options in the coffee drinks as hobby world but these are the best options for me and what I'm willing to spend. I'm a fan of HX machines because water freshness makes a big difference and an HX machine insures that. Dual boilers can easily result in water being heated multiple times and loosing its oxygen unless you blow through the tanks EVERY time you use it.

More: http://localmile.org/cafe/

If I could only choose one option it'd be the Oracle as it does a good job, is easy for me for quick morning coffee, and easy for everyone.

So you have 2 coffee machines?
I am thinking about it as well.
But it's bad politically, it's going to be much easier to convince my wife to upgrade than to buy another. And my kitchen isn't small but the extra space used is a big deal.
At the same time I notice that it may actually be cheaper to buy a dedicated espresso setup that's less automatic than what I'm looking for and keep my current BTC machine than to sell the machine and attempt to only minimally increase the process complexity.

I've watched this Swift Mini review and ... wow, looks disappointing. Much worse than the HB review where it was good enough to be indistinguishable by tasting from a manual tamping. I do need to learn more about both this and the Oracle setup (which looks quite similar).

Anyway I found another solution.
Buy a good grinder and use it with my current super-automatic. At least for now. If I decide later that I still want a proper espresso setup - the investment will come handy.

I would still have it easy to make regular coffee. As well as regular decaf.
I would have it much easier to compare different coffees (I still don't know what kind of beans do I like the most and enjoy experimenting). I will probably have my dosing a bit more consistent. And it will allow me to grind finer, with smoother adjustment (well, now I use the finest for all coffees so in practical terms I have no adjustment at all).
And the big question - will a better grinder improve the quality of the brew despite the pressurized basket that my machine has?
That's important because if the answer is "no" the value proposition is going to be low. I wouldn't like to spend a lot for a tiny improvement even if I had a future upgrade on my mind.

This solution has 1 hidden benefit, it's going to make things easier with my wife:
* if I finally buy an espresso machine, the incremental cost of this machine and auxiliary equipment (tamper and so on) will be smaller
* I think there's a good chance I'll be able to make her learn dosing and grinding, a small step towards brewing espresso.

IanO wrote:A few thoughts...

It's best to not drink milk based drinks after about mid afternoon.

...

Really? I'm curious why not. I drink cappuccinos in the PM all the time, especially with dessert after dinner.

There are theories that the tradition may be tied to lactose intolerance. James Hoffman has a thought-provoking video on the topic.

fiu-bździu wrote: Anyway I found another solution.
Buy a good grinder and use it with my current super-automatic. At least for now. If I decide later that I still want a proper espresso setup - the investment will come handy.

I would still have it easy to make regular coffee. As well as regular decaf.
I would have it much easier to compare different coffees (I still don't know what kind of beans do I like the most and enjoy experimenting). I will probably have my dosing a bit more consistent. And it will allow me to grind finer, with smoother adjustment (well, now I use the finest for all coffees so in practical terms I have no adjustment at all).
And the big question - will a better grinder improve the quality of the brew despite the pressurized basket that my machine has?
That's important because if the answer is "no" the value proposition is going to be low. I wouldn't like to spend a lot for a tiny improvement even if I had a future upgrade on my mind.

This solution has 1 hidden benefit, it's going to make things easier with my wife:
* if I finally buy an espresso machine, the incremental cost of this machine and auxiliary equipment (tamper and so on) will be smaller
* I think there's a good chance I'll be able to make her learn dosing and grinding, a small step towards brewing espresso.

I don't know your superautomatic, but I've tried the 'better grinder' (Niche in my case) with my two superautos (a Gaggia Titanium and a Delonghi Magnifica). using scales as if I were making an espresso on a prosumer machine.

It does work but it's not an ideal solution. You'll be limited to single shots (typically 10g of coffee grounds, and possibly less than what you can use with the built-in grinder due to chute design issues). I've also found that, at least on the Gaggia, it's almost impossible to have a good flat coffee puck, as the 'decaf funnel' pours the ground coffee unevenly (one can try to improve this with a 'distributing tool' but it becomes a big faff.

The benefit of a stepless grinder is noticeable, and my Niche would grind finer, which is helpful when dialing this type of machine, but it's only a stop gap solution IMO. For me, the better solution is to modify the built-in grinder to allow it to grind finer (by adjusting the gears or the burrs), and possibly in a stepless way as the steps may be too coarse (I didn't do this, because by playing with slightly longer or shorter espresso presets, I could make do with the standard steps and get decent results in 22-35 seconds).

Doing so, I can get a 20g or 26g beverage from 10g of coffee beans in 22 to 35s (and play with temperature and preinfusion to optimise the results). Each machine works differently: on my Gaggia, 'double espressos' are made with 2 single shots, which allows for consistency, and one can set the 3 size buttons to get pretty consistent volumes out as there is a flow meter in this machine. My Delonghi has just two -single and double- coffee buttons, but there is no way to adjust them independently. the the amount of coffee beans is increased when making a double (with a cap at 12.5g or thereabouts). In effect with the Delonghi, I've optimised it for singles, and make two singles back to back if I want a good tasting 'double'.

All in all, it works fairly well, but I've decided to upgrade to a lever machine for even better results (and more consistency). Superautos have a lot of features (pre-infusion, adjustable temperature -in theory-), but they don't have the thermal stability of brass heavy machines.

Summarizing your OP it seems like you want a good cup of hot milk drinks without the knowledge or experience of making any. I guess the best way to answer this is "you won't." If you don't care for specialty coffee, (which is totally fine) you will be able to get alot more budget friendly espresso machines because dark/italian roasted coffee doesnt really require the most sophisticated equipment to make "good" coffee.

RueFondary wrote:I don't know your superautomatic, but I've tried the 'better grinder' (Niche in my case) with my two superautos (a Gaggia Titanium and a Delonghi Magnifica). using scales as if I were making an espresso on a prosumer machine.

It does work but it's not an ideal solution. You'll be limited to single shots (typically 10g of coffee grounds, and possibly less than what you can use with the built-in grinder due to chute design issues). I've also found that, at least on the Gaggia, it's almost impossible to have a good flat coffee puck, as the 'decaf funnel' pours the ground coffee unevenly (one can try to improve this with a 'distributing tool' but it becomes a big faff.

The benefit of a stepless grinder is noticeable, and my Niche would grind finer, which is helpful when dialing this type of machine, but it's only a stop gap solution IMO. For me, the better solution is to modify the built-in grinder to allow it to grind finer (by adjusting the gears or the burrs), and possibly in a stepless way as the steps may be too coarse (I didn't do this, because by playing with slightly longer or shorter espresso presets, I could make do with the standard steps and get decent results in 22-35 seconds).

Doing so, I can get a 20g or 26g beverage from 10g of coffee beans in 22 to 35s (and play with temperature and preinfusion to optimise the results). Each machine works differently: on my Gaggia, 'double espressos' are made with 2 single shots, which allows for consistency, and one can set the 3 size buttons to get pretty consistent volumes out as there is a flow meter in this machine. My Delonghi has just two -single and double- coffee buttons, but there is no way to adjust them independently. the the amount of coffee beans is increased when making a double (with a cap at 12.5g or thereabouts). In effect with the Delonghi, I've optimised it for singles, and make two singles back to back if I want a good tasting 'double'.

All in all, it works fairly well, but I've decided to upgrade to a lever machine for even better results (and more consistency). Superautos have a lot of features (pre-infusion, adjustable temperature -in theory-), but they don't have the thermal stability of brass heavy machines.

It's great to see someone with actual experience doing something similar.
I don't feel confident enough to try to disassemble and modify my coffee machine but it would be interesting to see people doing this. Have you seen some thread on that? Would love to see how is it done. Maybe I would bite the bullet eventually.

So now I'm reading up on grinders. Looks like there's been a lot going on in the area in the recent months...
I see that Niche is commonly recommended. I have mixed feelings about them because I dislike the patent system a lot - and they seem to be patent-happy. Still, I don't rule this out.

I see that there's G-Iota that from what I've read so far (which is too little) seems a bit cheaper than Niche and a bit worse as well.

I see Arco Goat which claims to do everything just as well as other single dosing grinders while being cheaper and having a manual option.
I don't believe them, this simply sounds too good to be true. But I have no idea where the falsehood could be, in what way would it be worse than f.e. Niche?

I see that there's a Weber Key preorder as well. It looks like it automatically distributes the coffee in the puck. I really like that, looks like it performs a part of LM Swift Mini's job but seemingly does it better. It's another tradoff in efficiency vs. price, but one that doesn't seem to sacrifice quality. But putting a patent on this? Come on, as soon as I've seen a manual WDT tool a newbie like me was able to think about making an automated one.

Anyway, I think I'll buy a grinder. As of now Arco Goat is my top pick - because so far I have no possibility to make a cappuccino-like drink while traveling. A manual grinder + some portable coffee machine (what?) + some frother would enable that. And even if I don't like the grinder, there's a chance to resell it without large loss. Or maybe I'm too optimistic here?...

I just bought a machine (arrived yesterday). Since it's my first machine ever, and I've never pulled a shot in my life before yesterday, I was pretty worried that it would be really difficult to pull a good shot, since what's important is:

1) Barista
2) Bean
3) Grinder
4) Machine

I've found that it's not difficult at all with fresh beans, even at 9 bar, and at 6 bar using the "turbo shot" recipe (15 grams dose, 40 grams output, 6 bar maximum pressure) it's positively easy. I've only pulled three 6 bar shots (drank two), both of which have been really tasty, very similar to the best 9 bar shot I managed (which was a pressure profile shot), and I didn't pressure profile except to keep to 6 bars.

https://strivefortone.com/2020/09/19/lo ... -espresso/

So, don't be too worried, although I do suggest a machine which can be easily adjusted to 6 bar (and a good grinder). Also, please remember that very fresh beans shouldn't be used for espresso, so maybe order some beans from a good roaster in advance of your machine purchase.

Of course, this may be because I just have low expectations, and note that milk is actually a pretty serious challenge (I've tried foaming six times so far, and I think my success rate is zero). Latte art is of course not even possible since my milking success rate is zero.

Here's the latest six bar shot I pulled (which I think looks good but I might be wrong given the dearth of experience):

Congrats on the machine. Which one did you get?

Thanks!

Bianca

Nice! Bought mine 5 months ago, and every morning still feels like the first day I received it. You're going to love the Bianca.